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Hi! I think this is the same video as the one above it.
>> . I just couldn’t keep track of which hand to have the toy in to start – sooo confused. LOL I think I should work on this without a dog for a while. >>
When doing one blind, the toy starts (and stays) in the hand on the same side she is starting on. And yes, you can totally do that without the dog 🙂 And by using the toy like that, your shoulder naturally goes back like it would on course, so she was able to see the connection clearly 🙂
T
Hi!
The blinds are looking really good! Yes, the whole “where does the darned toy go” is weird at first but your last 2 reps here were particularly perfect! What you did so well there was you got the blind and the connection REALLY well, great toy placement with the correct hand but also tight to your body so she was tight too. And, on those last 2 reps you kept running and that is ideal (on the first couple, you stopped as you rewarded).
So keep running and rewarding as you did on the last 2 reps! And you can also have Brad hold her so you can have even more head start for more running room.Great job!
TracyGood morning!
Yeah…. you won’t be winning this game any time soon hahaha!
One tweak for you: ask Brad to hold her 10 feet behind you. You will throw the toy ahead like you did here (as far ahead as possible). When it lands, you start to run and you say GO (or get it). As soon as you say that, Brad releases her to drive to the toy. You should be connected to her (looking at her a little) as you run run run.
The reason I suggest this is not because I think you will win (yes, *try* to win but you probably won’t win), but more about teaching her to drive past you. Picture the ending line of a course – you are a little ahead and then as you run and yell GO GO GO, she should drive past you. So having Brad hold her is a good first step to getting that! Let me know if this makes sense!
Have fun!
TracyGood morning!
>> I would love to build on her toy drive, but I am much more comfortable in my timing and response when rewarding with food, so the toys are a lot of thinking for me!
I totally relate LOL!! I feel like I need 3 hands sometimes with the toy. We will keep working on ways to feel more comfortable with using the toy, and using toys and food together. The pups also give us feedback because most pups require toys and food to be a bit more separate in the early stages as we balance the value. It is extremely rare that a pup has equal value for both food and toys, and can go back and forth easily.
>>In response to your question about what she enjoys playing with, it tends to be any toy that another dog has or wants (she’s a very submissive girl, but will stare for hours while another dog has a toy and be ready to grab it right when they leave),
This is good! You can entice and engage her with a ‘stolen’ toy from another dog 🙂 Does she love to chase it around if you attach it to something long? Does she like frisbees or toys?
>>and socks. If I have any doubt of if she has toy drive, I just have to see her pounce and pick up and shake a sock and I’m reminded that she really does have the potential.
Ha!!! Ok, you might need to get some long cheap socks, wear them a bit so they get that good sock smell, and try to play with her with socks 🙂
>>I tend to work my toy sessions by letting her pick the toy-I have a bag full of high value toys (lots of variation and fuzz) and bring it out only for toy specific sessions.
This is great! So fun! And you can just throw things around and play, without formal training with the toy. You can slide some ‘formal’ stuff in like the driving forward or toy races when she is jazzed up for a toy she chose.
>>I definitely haven’t been great about bridging the gap between toy play and using toys as a reward, so I’m very excited to see how that develops throughout this class.>>
The first step will be to plan a toy session right before an official session with cookies… the way to do this is to have your cookies and training area set up with whatever you want to do. But separately from it, in a different room or outside or something: play with the toy she chooses or a sock 🙂 and after a super short play moment, you can run to the cookie training spot and do the cookie session. The toy play with then get even more exciting because it might predict the start of the cookie session. And you should keep it in an entirely different location for now, so she is not asked to play with toys yet when there are cookie smells or cookie-based training cues in the environment.
>>With that being said, I used only a toy (no food) for the focus forward game and am very happy with the result. She definitely is not retrieving the toy or anything close to it, but she was super happy to continue tugging with me when I grabbed it. I maybe let the tugging go a bit long-I cut much of the tugging to keep the video under 2 minutes-but for me it felt like a win.>>
TOTAL WIN!! This was a great session! And you can let her go drive to the toy even sooner. She wants to go grab it before it even hits the ground, so you can let her go when she is rarin’ to go for it. So for now, as soon as she is excited about the toy, let her drive to it.
And it was a perfect toy choice, long and crazy. She was tugging, she was pulling at it, perfect! I don’t think the tugging was too long – did she quit tugging or let go before you wanted her to? If so, then yes it went too long. But if you can take the toy to start the next rep before she lets go of it? Perfect!
Great job here!!! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning! Super nice progression here with this game!!!
He was great with the double bowls! Because he chews, you might need to delay cookie drops til after he chews the cookie LOL! You don’t need to go back to this level, but it is good to know for future cookie games 😀
On the 2nd video, he totally had it, good job delaying the cookie tosses and he definitely had the rhythm of the back and forth. That made it easy to add the upright (see below)
Toys: He definitely liked this game, maybe better than the version with the cookies 🙂 One suggestion: Let him engage with the toy you want him to tug on for maybe a full 5 seconds so he can really tug… then let it go ‘dead’, then start tapping the other toy. You were super quick about tapping and wiggling the 2nd toy as soon as he arrived at the first toy, so he was not sure if he should engage or not. The longer tug moment, then the quiet ‘dead’ moment, followed by the tapping of the other toy should help clarify that for him. And, you can totally use a ‘get it’ marker, that seemed to help him
He was definitely ready for you to add the upright and he did really well. The back and forth from the cookie game transferred perfectly! For the next session, you can move to having yourself in a chair so it will be more comfy for you and gets us closer to him seeing this game with you standing. If he is fine with you being in a chair, you can also start to slide the upright further away a little bit – I bet he will have no questions about it and will let you add some distance between you and the upright.
Great job here! Let me know how the next session goes!
TracyGood morning!
>> I will start having treats in my hands. He is distracted by it , but will worked through.
Yes, he will work through it – use really low value treat to start with and a really easy skill. This is a good time in training to begin teaching him this little bit of self-control that if he wants the cookie, he has to leave the cookie to go do something, to get the cookie 🙂
>>For Blind cross with toy, he is not going for a toy at this spot. will change a place. He is toy and food driven. I learn that using high value food as string cheese – that you can see in grass – diminish his drive for toy. I am trying to start with toy, but was not successful today. Will try again
THis morning start with toy – no interest.>>I see what you mean about the tugging when food is present. And also when tugging without food, he does great! One thing that will really help is to use much longer toys that are wilder and crazier 🙂 because he is so small, you can either get a really long tuggie (4 or 5 feet long) or take your smaller/shorter tuggies and tie them together so they are 4 or 5 feet long. You can also get toys with fur or fleece and squeakers involved too. I use a lot of flyball toys because they are long and hairy and insane LOL!!! I can send you some links if you want to see what I mean.
The reason I suggest the longer toy is because he can then really chase it and get his prey drive going to chase and bite and tug 🙂 When the toy stops or when you bend over too much, he backs off a little especially if food is involved. The super long crazy toys should help that. Let me know what you think!
TracyThe pace of the pivot was perfect here! Nice and slow, so she was nice and tight!
One suggestion: You can lower your cookie hand to below your knee so she looks downward a little more, for agility head position instead of heeling or rally head position 🙂
You can also now let her see you moving fast for a few steps, then big decel then pivot. That would probably require you throwing the cookies further away to have more time to show all that. She is speedy!!
‘
Blinds looked great! She is super responsive to your cues and you did a great job of making strong connection. By rewarding across your body, you can see how your dog-side shoulder gets pushed back and she can very clearly see the connection when you finish the cross. And yes, you did have to start a little sooner… she is explosive! Love it! As you add even more running to this game, you can present the reward a little closer to you: I try to keep my hand touching my belly so I don’t end up over-rotating, which slows us down a little.>> She’s good with both food and toy and switching between the two but definitely way more intensity with the toy games. I still need to do another session with the prop sends and may try that with a toy and see how that works.>>
Toys tend to bring more intensity, and that is fine. The more we mix in food, the more intensity food will bring too! And yes, another session will the prop will be great – using food-then-toy, and also toy alone. We add more games tomorrow 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
She did really well with both of these!!On the session with you standing, you can move the bowls further back, past your heels, so she has even more room to zip around the upright 🙂
No worries about her looking up at you: you can get bigger bowls so you can drop the treats before she looks up at you, with the added bonus of less bending for you and faster delivery of rewards.
She is ready for you to move the upright a little further away while you are standing.
She also did really well with the toys! Do you have a marker that says “you may bite the toy now”? I say “bite” (more on that coming this week :))And you can also wiggle the toy to help her know she has permission to get it.
And you can also look at her more. I think you were looking down or at the toys, but she will get used to you looking at her in agility (connection!) through these games: basically we look at her, she looks at her work.
Great job! Let me know how she does in the next session!
TracyThis resilience walk was great! I guess I didn’t account for the need for a machete LOL!! Also didn’t account for gators LOL! And I loved seeing her reaction to the new stimuli. She freezes for a heartbeat… then her response seems to involve MOVING! ZOOM ZOOM ZOOOOOOM! LOL!
This is good to know, because it helps us support her when she gets into more challenging situations as she grows up. She might need some zoom breaks built into training as part of the resilience elements of completing the stress cycle and decompression. And that is great to know! All dogs need *something* (some need to zoom, some need to sniff, for example) so the sooner we know, the better we can support them.
Have fun with these walks – she is surely going to lead you on amazing adventures ahead!
Tracy
Good morning! This looks great!
Cookie reps looked great! And I know the toy reps felt floppy but the long floppy toy actually ended up super tight to your leg, which was perfect!! And, your connection looked great: for example, at :34, you got a great camera angle of the exit of the blind cross, where you had the reward across the body. Note how your dog-side shoulder (left arm) is back and we can very clearly see your face and upper body – that is PERFECTION and Prytania had zero questions.
She did have a question at :43 – what happened there was that you were looking down at the toy at the exit of the blind instead of at her, which closed your dog side shoulder forward so she didn’t read the blind and ended up on your left. No worries, the rest of the reps looked great with super connection.
When you do this with Annalise, you can start each rep with the cookie toss like you did here, or you can hold Prytania like a restrained recall, and then Annalise runs away to do the blind (have her call them pup so you know when to let go). And you can also swap, sometimes Annalise or Amy can hold her, so you can do the recall to the blind. All of that is great for the pup to learn to work with different people and ignore people when it is time to ignore them.
Great job! Let me know how it goes with Annalise today!
TracyGood morning!
> He is getting a little better about me reaching for him and picking him up. I have been scooting backward with a treat and he comes to me and will put his legs on me. So it’s becoming more of a good thing>>
This is great!!!! That is quick progress – keep up the good work being patient and making it super fun for him to come in close to you!
He is a cone-wrapping rockstar! So fun! And yes, he sorted it out nicely when the cone got further away. Good boy! You can ping pong the distance: start easy, then do a couple of reps with the cone a bit further, then pull it in closer for a couple of reps, then push it even further away… then bring it in closer to an easy position. That will help him really lock onto it.
>> Should I start with a wing and have it closer to me since that will change the picture?
There are two ways we can move to the next step with this. I suggest doing both, in separate sessions:
– using the same cone you had here, change your position to sitting in a chair. That changes the picture pretty substantially for a little dude, so bring the cone back in closer for the start of the session. His confidence will tell you if you can push the cone back out or not. The goal of this is to have you sitting as part of the gradual progression to you standing up.
– while you are still on the ground like you were here, swap the cone out for a wingless upright (not a full wing yet, try for a tall skinny upright that is halfway between the cone and a full wing). And as you mentioned – bring it in closer to you to start because you are changing the picture and we want him to be successful. And if he is highly successful, you can push it back out 🙂
>> was kinda a bad trainer, you can hear Connor whining in the background… he wanted to play. But Casper didn’t seem bothered by it.>>
I didn’t even notice it LOL! Casper seemed fine. And I think whining to play is different that dog police barking LOL!
Great job here! Let me know how he does with the next steps!
TracyGood morning! Great session here!
Both sides looked pretty equal here, I didn’t see her asking any questions even as the cone got further away. Super!Do you have a jump upright for a wingless jump? You can replace the cone with that. Start it maybe 50% closer to you than the cones ended up here to see how she processes a new item. If she is fine with it, you can move it back out pretty quickly. I believe she will be fine with it but I always like to make sure before we add too much more challenge 🙂
Yes, the bowls were further back and can still be further back – and we can also fade the bowls out entirely. That gets us a little ahead of the game, but that is fine :). You can fade them by moving them further back while getting the cookies in them, and then moving them behind you entirely while plopping the cookies where the bowls used to be 🙂 You can also replace the bowls with smaller targets like post it notes or something if she struggles at all without the bowls – but somehow I don’t think she will struggle 🙂
You are welcome to post more videos, or you can hold off til we build on this game soon 🙂 I am always happy to watch whatever you want to post.
Great job!
TracyHi! So much good work here!
I think the send session went pretty darned well! I agree that she got amped up but I don’t think it was the clicker – I think it was when you were REALLY exciting with the ready dance and she was leaping around, she was in leap mode for the prop too. When you were more calm for the ready dance and she stood with all 4 feet on the ground – great prop hits, whether or not you had the clicker. So she can totally stay 4 on the floor in the ready dance 🙂 And if she is not perfect, you can still reward for the effort of leaving you to go to the prop. You can also try this with a toy, because the toy will be more stimulating and that will challenge her to hit the prop even when she is more stimulated 🙂
The decel game also went well – the towel was SMART!!! She is a powerful girl, so from now on, always do the pivots so she learns to anticipate the turn when you decelerate. When you are facing forward, she was happy to blast by you and your cookie hand was stopping her LOL! So nice slow pivots starting right before she gets to your fingers, like you did at 1:22 and after, were great: she had lovely turns! And there is a lot of running for her – I just noticed the palm trees so you must be somewhere warm 🙂 Keep the sessions short so she doesn’t get too hot: 3 or 4 reps then a break is fine 🙂
The wing wraps went great too! Bazinga seemed to think that this was the BEST GAME EVER (basically, free and easy cookies haha!) She was doing a great job of getting the back-and-forth rhythm. At 1:08, Frankie distracted her and Bazinga lost her train of thought – if that happens, you can get her back in the rhythm by plopping the cookies into the bowl faster.
I think she is ready for you to add in an upright between the bowls for her to start going around! And if that goes well, you can try it all with you sitting in a chair (the next step towards getting you standing up).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
